Eddie Robinson

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Edward Gay Robinson (born February 13, 1919 in Jackson, Louisiana , † April 3, 2007 in Ruston, Louisiana ) was an American coach in the field of college football and from 1941 to 1997 head coach of the American football team at Grambling State University . With 408 games won, he is one of the most successful coaches in college football history. For his services, he was, among others, into the College Football Hall of Fame was added as well as the Louisiana Tech University and the Yale University awarded an honorary doctorate.

Life

The Eddie G. Robinson Museum in Grambling, Louisiana

Eddie Robinson was born in 1919 in the town of Jackson in East Feliciana Parish in rural Louisiana to a farm laborer family and grew up in Baton Rouge , where he graduated from high school until 1937 . As a teenager, he took odd free entry jobs at football games at Louisiana State University and Southern University . He studied at Leland College in Baker , where he played as a quarterback football and received a bachelor's degree in 1941 , and at the University of Iowa , where he graduated in 1954 with a master's degree in physical education .

In 1941 he took over the position of head coach of the American football team of the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute , today's Grambling State University in Grambling, Louisiana , one of the historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). He worked in this role until 1997 and also worked at the university temporarily as sports director, as head of the department for physical education and as a basketball and baseball coach . In 1976 he was president of the American Football Coaches Association . After retiring in 1997 at the age of 78, he died ten years later in Ruston of long-standing Alzheimer's disease . He was married and had a son and a daughter.

In the 1981 television movie Grambling's White Tiger about Jim Gregory, the first non-African American quarterback at Grambling State University, Eddie Robinson was portrayed by Harry Belafonte . The Super Bowl XXXII held on January 25, 1998 , in which he performed the coin toss , was dedicated to him.

Sporting successes and awards

View of Eddie Robinson Stadium

Eddie Robinson achieved as the football head coach of the Grambling Tigers a record of 408 wins with 165 losses and 15 draws. This made him the first coach to win more than 400 games with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and, at the time of his retirement, the coach with the most wins in college football history. Only John Gagliardi and Joe Paterno have more victories to date. The Grambling Tigers were led by Eddie Robinson 17 championships of the Southwestern Athletic Conference win and finish 45 seasons with a positive record this season.

Around 80 percent of the players he trained successfully completed their studies, and more than 200 of them were later active as professionals in the NFL and other leagues. That number is exceptionally high for a small college like Grambling State University with a team not participating in the top division of the NCAA, known as the Football Bowl Subdivision . The players who move from Eddie Robinson's teams to the professional field include Willie Brown , Charles Joiner , Willie Davis and Doug Williams , who won a Super Bowl with the Washington Redskins as the first African-American quarterback in NFL history . Doug Williams was after the end of his professional career Eddie Robinsons successor as head coach at Grambling State University.

The football stadium at Grambling State University, which opened in 1983, is named after Eddie Robinson, and streets in Grambling and Baton Rouge also bear his name. There is a museum on the campus of Grambling State University to commemorate his life and work. The Football Writers Association of America has presented the Eddie Robinson Award annually since 1987 to the most outstanding coach of the year in the Football Championship Subdivision , the second-highest division of the NCAA. Eddie Robinson received honorary doctorates from Louisiana Tech University (1983) and from Yale University (1997) and the Amos Alonzo Stagg Coaching Award from the United States Sports Academy in 1985 . In 1997 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame .

literature

Further publications

  • Eddie Robinson, Richard Edward Lapchick: Never before, never again: The Stirring Autobiography of Eddie Robinson, the Winningest Coach in the History of College Football. St. Martin's Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-312-24224-7
  • Denny Dressman: Eddie Robinson: He was the Martin Luther King of Football. A biography. Comserv Books, Denver 2010, ISBN 0-9774283-3-8

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Robinson, Eddie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robinson, Edward Gay
BRIEF DESCRIPTION american football player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Jackson, Louisiana
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 2007
Place of death Ruston, Louisiana